When you think of February a couple of things come to mind: one is Punxsutawney Phil to tell us if we are done with winter and the other is, of course, Valentine’s Day.
Since the ground hog doesn’t do a lot of baking,
I chose to focus on Valentine’s Day and find some wonderful sweets to prepare in celebration of this day for love.
With that in mind, I chose some sweet treats that were not only good for the sweet tooth, but were fun to make with the kids.
In deciding what to prepare, I searched for easy to bake items where the kids could easily participate.
So, starting with foodGizmo, I searched for Valentine cookies and quickly found quite a few recipes fitting my criteria.
I chose two:
Valentine Sugar Cookies from Food Network and
Valentine Kiss Cookies from Recipezaar.
The
Valentine Sugar Cookies recipe was simple and easy to make, it even came complete with an icing recipe.
I decided this would be a fun recipe to make because the kids could join in and help cut out shapes and have fun decorating them in their own creative style.
Once the cookie dough was ready, we cut some into Valentine shapes with cookie cutters and others we baked in a heart cookie pan.
For the cookie cutters I found a couple of new ones: the
Wilton XO String Along Cookie Cutter
and the
Comfort Grip Heart Cookie Cutter by Wilton
, you can pick these up in our foodGizmo Shop.
Wilton Valentine 6 Cavity Hearts Cookie Pan
was also from Wilton. While the cookies were cooling on my wire rack, I prepared the icing; colored the frosting red and pink; brought out the various decorating sprinkles; and grabbed some pastry bags.
In a short time, I was able to provide the kids the tools to create their masterpieces, and wow they had fun doing it. All of cookies were delicious, and given the fact that they disappeared quickly I would say that everybody gave them five stars.
I would like to add that the cookies baked in the Heart Cookie Pan turned out thick and moist, they looked and tasted like cookies you would find in a bakery. The kids especially liked the designs imprinted on the cookies because it made it easier for them to decorate like a professional. I would highly recommend this Heart Cookie Pan for your Valentine treats.
The second cookie recipe I chose was the
Valentine Kiss Cookies. Talk about simple, fast, and quite tasty; these were great.
After preparing the dough my daughter had fun wrapping the Hershey Kisses in the center and rolling them in powdered sugar.
She was actually upset that we didn’t have more dough to make more cookies, guess I will have to double the batch next time! For this recipe, I experimented a little.
I made half of the batch with solid chocolate Hershey Kisses and the other half with Hershey Kisses filled with caramel. The Hershey Caramel Kisses melted fully when cooked and added a great caramel flavor into to the cookie; this received rave reviews from my husband.
The solid chocolate Hershey Kiss did not melt all the way. But, when you bit into the cookie, it gave you that heavenly peanut butter and chocolate flavors similar to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I took these into work and the folks couldn’t get enough of them.
I have been asked, a few times, when I will make some more; guess I better get baking. Maybe next time I will try adding some other types of kisses or even peanut butter cups, I will let you know how that goes.
Finally, to round out the treats, I stepped away from cookies and looked for cupcakes to make for my son’s birthday.
I found a wonderful recipe from the talented folks at Martha Steward Living Magazine.
In the February issue there were many wonderful sweets that caught my eye, but one in particular stood out,
Raspberry Cupcakes with Lacey Chocolate Hearts.
I decided to give these a try for my youngest son’s fourth birthday. From the cup cakes to the fancy Lacy hearts, all got a huge thumbs up from the folks at the party;
a few of the adults even went back for seconds so I know they must have been good. I have to tell you, I discovered something with this recipe; not all cake and cupcake recipes come from a box (wink wink).
After I found out there is such a thing as Cake flour, I was ready to grab the mixer and give it a try.
Yes, this recipe took a bit longer to prepare, but it was well worth the extra effort, and yes, most definitely I will make it again. I even recruited the kids to help me make the Lacy Chocolate Hearts. I had them trace heart shapes on parchment paper using a heart shape cookie cutter while I melted semi-sweet chocolate morsels in a double boiler. I then piped out the melted chocolate following the tracings on the parchment paper and instantly had fun, professional looking, and decorative chocolate lacey hearts, at least the ones that survived to grace the tops of the cupcakes. Unfortunately a few didn’t make it due to their demise by the hands and mouths of my children, but that is half of the fun when baking or cooking: those that help prepare get a yummy sample first hand and, of course, chocolate treats are no exception.
All of these wonderful treats were not only fun to make but were also fun to eat! I hope you enjoy trying any of these recipes, which you can find on
foodGizmo, or use foodGizmo to search for some of your own sweets for your sweets!
Happy baking and have a wonderful Valentine’s Day.
dgizmo